11+ Practise Papers

[Moonflower12]

Does anybody know which practise papers to buy for the Warwickshire Grammar Schools 11+ tests, please? I know it is verbal reasoning, non-verbal and mathematics multiple choice, but I'm just wondering which books to buy?

Thank you 😊

The Warwickshire council 11 plus page says of 2022 entry (not yet updated for 2023 entry so it might change):

"The 11+ test for 2022 entry will be operated as a shared test between Warwickshire and the Grammar Schools in Birmingham Foundation. The same test papers will be utilised across both authorities"

The Birmingham Grammar Schools website is a bit more informative. It says that a full familiarisation guide will be available to download at the end of March 2022, but at the bottom of this page it does have a link to familiarisation materials.

A significant change for 2023 entry is that the Birmingham test format is changing from CEM to GL. My DD took the test for 2022 entry for the Birmingham grammars, and I'm happy to give recommendations for what helped my DD (we just prepared at home) but I'm conscious that the GL test is slightly different so I don't have direct experience. Most of the publishers that produce workbooks and practice papers do these for both GL and CEM, so I would think that you just need to make sure you choose GL papers.

One thing it does say (for Birmingham) is that the questions will be multiple choice, not written, so when you are choosing materials, you can make sure you choose the multiple choice types.

It might be worth getting in touch with the Warwickshire council education department to ask them to confirm that they will still be sharing the test with Birmingham. Then you know you can rely on the test information provided by the Birmingham grammar schools website.

DD used a range of materials by the following publishers:

• CGP (practice book & assessment test book, and 10-minute tests) - we thought these were very good
• Bond
• Schofield & Sims
• First Past the Post
• Collins
• Letts

We didn't do many mock tests at home. Most helpful was an in-person mock run locally, which really mimicked the test conditions. They gave a quite detailed breakdown of scores, max-min scored by attendees, and your child's position compared with others in the room. I would recommend doing one or two of these.

@LetItGoToRuin
Thank you so much for all that very useful information. I shall take all of your advice on board.

Thank you again.